Bourque’s Supermarket

581 Saizan St.
Port Barre, LA 70577 (337) 585-6261

Adolph “The Boss” Bourque raised a menagerie of livestock at his home in Port Barre, Louisiana, to feed his family. In 1948 he began selling cuts of meat, eggs, and vegetables to neighbors out his front door. Eventually, he turned his living room market into a freestanding business, with his three sons working at his side. In the 1970s, brothers Carl and Lester Bourque worked together to develop a family boudin recipe for Bourque’s Supermarket. Today, Adolph’s grandsons, Shannon and Chad Bourque, are at the helm of the family business. Under their watch, the boudin got some extra attention; they put their aprons on and got to work, and after approval from the Bourque family, the new boudin recipe made its public debut. It also made its nationwide debut. Bourque’s Supermarket now has an online store and ships boudin everywhere from Houston to Hawaii.

Date of interview:

October 10, 2006

Interviewer:

Amy C. Evans

Photographer:

Amy C. Evans

People who just walk in the store…if they don’t have time to cook supper, they just walk up to the counter and buy five, six, seven pounds of boudin. That’s supper because it’s like a whole meal. You have rice, you have your meat, you have onions, your bell peppers, your vegetables and stuff. It’s just like a meal. ~ Shannon Bourque

Oh, I love our boudin. I probably eat boudin probably four or five days out of the week—anywhere from two to four links each day. That’s a good bit of boudin. But I can tell you this, there’s a lot more people that eat a whole lot more boudin than what I eat…It’s good on crackers. That’s how I like it, on crackers. ~ Chad Bourque